Hell Revisited (Hell happened)

by Stenzelbarton, Terry

  Kellie was in worse shape as Mrs. deJesus discovered. She was face down on the floor and struggling weakly to turn over. Her face was blood covered and a pool of blood was forming under her. She had been held down by Danny until Katie was able to move him.

  Mrs. deJesus, who had advanced medical training as a school administrator, had rushed to her side. John was bringing more towels and another first aid kit that Josh had in his camper as Mrs. deJesus was examining Kellie’s injuries.

  Just as Katie had done, Mrs. deJesus went to work on the head first. There was a lot of blood and it was flowing freely. She instructed Tara, who was kneeling opposite her over Kellie’s body, to hold the towel John had brought on the wound in Kellie’s side until she could finish on Kellie’s head.

  The young girl, crying but doing as instructed, held it where she was told.

  Wiping Kellie’s head wound clean as best she could, she saw a flap of skin had been lifted. She folded it back into place and put a four-inch band-aid over it. She’d clean the blood later. The point where the knife had punctured her neck wasn’t as bad, but was still dripping blood. A smaller bandage was used to close that wound as well.

  She then turned to the holes in Kellie’s side. The pool of blood under her friend was still getting bigger. She had Tara pull her hands back so she could see the hole and immediately told the girl to put the towel back.

  “Johnny,” she said looking at the boy who looked like he was in the first stages of shock. “In the cellar, by the bed there is a bottle of Tequila. Get it. Hurry.” The boy was shaken out of his thoughts and dashed down the stairs.

  Kellie tried to talk. “Randy,” she croaked out. “Where’s Randy?”

  “We’ll find him,” Mrs. deJesus told her. He’s probably still working and didn’t hear the noise in the barn. She was just making that up. She didn’t know, but she wanted Kellie to calm down. “I’ll send Johnny after him when he gets back up here.”

  Mrs. deJesus asked Jamal for a knife. The young man who had been helping Katie tend to his friend Danny looked at the other twin girl who wasn’t helping those on the floor and told her, “Back of my belt, on the left.” The girl, who had been standing out of the way, reached under the young man’s shirt and pulled a razor-sharp knife with an eight-inch blade out of its sheath.

  “Perfect,” Mrs. deJesus said taking the knife from the little girl. John returned with the half-full bottle of Tequila. She took it from the boy and unscrewed the top. “Drink this. A lot of it.” Kellie shook her head and Mrs. deJesus insisted. “This is going to hurt, and you are going to try to move, but I want you to stay as still as you can.

  “Believe me, this will help.”

  Kellie took a swig with Mrs. deJesus’ help. “Johnny, find me a stapler.” Kellie didn’t hesitate and took two more big swallows and started crying.

  When Kellie handed her back the bottle, Mrs. deJesus poured the rest of the liquid over the blade of the knife, causing Kellie to almost pass out.

  Mrs. deJesus found both the entrance and exit holes of the bullet that had traveled through Kellie by using Josh’s knife to cut away the clothes, then scraping the blood off. She cleaned the one in front first and saw it was clotting nicely. The hole was the size of her little finger and had stopped bleeding so she just covered it with a bandage.

  The back hole was larger. It was leaking blood, but not heavily. She thought she might have to staple the hole shut, but if it was clotting already, maybe she should wait for Monica. She’d had only so much first aid training during her time with the Dallas school system.

  What was happening here was way over her skill level and she hoped what she was doing wasn’t more damage to her friend Kellie.

  “Johnny. Randy is probably in the barn. Go find him,” Mrs. deJesus told Tia’s 12-year-old son. The gangly boy took off with Boomer who had just returned from chasing the minivan.

  Mrs. deJesus looked at Katie, then to Marissa and the others. Danny was coming to, but he would have a concussion at least, and a headache to beat all hangovers.

  The bleeding that had been flowing from Kellie’s side had been staunched and bandaged.

  “We are very lucky no one is dead,” Mrs. deJesus told them. “Very lucky indeed.”

  Katie and the others had to agree. She then heard Kellie’s walkie-talkie. It was John. He sounded near hysterical. “I found Randy. I think he’s dead!”

  Chapter 2

  Kellie’s eyes shot open and she struggled to get up but Mrs. deJesus held her down. “You,” the older woman said, pointing to Jamal, “stay with her and do not let her get up. Tara, grab the kits and come with me, hurry.” She grabbed the walkie-talkie from beside Kellie and got up off the floor. “Where are you, son?” she asked levelly into the unit as she was racing out the door. “And Sara, find another walkie-talkie and turn it to channel three so I can talk to you up here.”

  “I’m in the criminal lady’s room in the barn. Please hurry. I think he’s dead.” Mrs. deJesus could tell the 12-year-old was near panic. “I’m on my way Johnny. Don’t move him.” She was running as fast as she could down the path. Her heart was pumping and memories of a school shooting in one of her middle schools flooded back to her.

  “There’s been enough death, God. Please don’t let young Randy be dead,” she prayed as she ran. Tara caught up with her and ran beside her with the two first aid kits.

  Mrs. Marguerite deJesus and her husband Juan had survived when nearly everyone else in the world had died. They found themselves alone in their town and had decided to drive to the gulf coast and bring their lives to a close. They were on their way when they came across Josh and his daughter and later Nick, Jamal, Sade, the Craven twins and a couple of others. When they all got sick, they went in search of medicine. They came across Jerry and his friends. Monica, their medic was able to help them.

  They all moved back to Jerry’s farm and there they stayed.

  Mrs. deJesus found 12-year-old Johnny, Tia’s son, at the door of the room where Cheryl had been held prisoner in the farm’s barn. There was a box with a TV half out of it on the floor and a new DVD player still in the box.

  Randy was lying on the floor where Johnny found him. Blood pooled under the young man’s face and there was a tooth on the floor.

  Randy was Jerry’s son. He was a very kind and soft-hearted young man who Mrs. deJesus liked very much. He was always helpful, never said an unkind word and had a smile that reminded her of Jerry.

  Mrs. deJesus knelt down and placed two fingers on Randy’s neck. With her heart pounding from her run she couldn’t tell if he was still alive. She moved her fingers to check again and felt a faint pulse. She thanked the God she’d just prayed to. “He’s alive. Tell them he’s alive.” Johnny, who was crying and holding on to Tara let go of the girl and fumbled with the walkie-talkie.

  “He’s alive! Mrs. deJesus says he’s alive!” he shouted into the radio.

  Mrs. deJesus saw Randy had a massive bump on the back of his head and his short brown hair was matted with drying blood. She leaned down and listened to his breathing. There was gurgling but it was steady. She took two fingers and pulled the clotted blood out of his mouth. There was a lot of it, including another broken tooth.

  Randy breathed easier but he was still unconscious.

  “Johnny, tell Jamal I need him down here,” Mrs. deJesus told the boy. When Jamal said he’d be down shortly, she looked at the two kids standing by the door, both looking too young to have to experience this type of horror. “Johnny, can you drive a quad?” He shook his head silently. “I can,” volunteered Tara. “My dad and I used to ride them.” Tara and her identical twin sister Sara had been found by Danny and Jamal.

  “Excellent. Go get the big one from the garage and bring it over here. Johnny, go find a wooden ladder if you can.” The kids ran off to do what Mrs. deJesus had asked. They might be scared, but they were doing as she asked without complaining and she couldn’t ask for more.

  She gently probed t
he bump on the back of Randy’s head. She wasn’t sure the skull was cracked or not, but it wasn’t staved in. She gently rolled his head to the side and saw his nose was nearly flat. He was unconscious now and if she waited until he came to, the pain might be too much. Using two fingers, one on each side of his nose, she set it. A blood clot broke free and she wiped his face and waited until it started clotting before laying his head back down on one of the towels Tara had brought with her. She didn’t want him choking on his own blood.

  The quad arrived at the same time as Jamal. Young Tara turned it off and waited for further instructions. John came out of the barn with an aluminum extension ladder. Mrs. deJesus told him to pull it apart so there was just one piece.

  “Jamal, take the blankets off the bed. John put the ladder beside young Randy,” Mrs. deJesus directed them. They finally understood what she had planned. Jamal ripped the blankets from the bed and heard the iron bar hit the floor. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at it.

  Jamal looked at Mrs. deJesus. She nodded. “Good thing it was not longer or heavier,” he said. She nodded again. He folded the blanket in thirds and laid it on the ladder John had put next to Randy.

  The three of them then rolled Jerry’s son onto the ladder. He weighed at least 250 pounds and for the kids and the elderly woman, it was a weight well over their ability to move easily. Mrs. deJesus held Randy’s head as best she could as they moved him and Tara jumped off the quad to help.

  Once Randy was on the ladder, Mrs. deJesus made sure the bump on his head was not against the rungs. When she was satisfied, they each took an end and lifted Randy out the door and onto the rear luggage rack of the quad.

  Jamal started to get on the quad to drive it back to the shelter. “Tara, you drive,” Mrs. deJesus said stopping him. “Jamal, turn around and sit backward behind Tara. You’re strong enough to hold on to the ladder, the little girl is not,” she instructed. “Tara, go slow. We’re right behind you.”

  Tara nodded, got on the machine, started it and waited for Jamal to say he was ready. When he nodded, she put the big Polaris in first gear and slowly released the clutch. They started moving at walking pace, which was good for Mrs. deJesus. Her heart was still pounding like a jackhammer. John walked beside her, tear stains on his face.

  The sound of the quad kept them from hearing the four motorhomes until they were halfway up the driveway. In all the excitement, Mrs. deJesus had forgotten Tia and her crew of three men was due and here she came with a convoy of four motorhomes. She told the others to continue to the shelter.

  Tia, an Army wife with two kids whose Army husband died in the plague, had left later than Jerry that morning. She’d gone with Josh, Marissa’s dad, Nick, a man in his early 30s, and Sade, a Nigerian-born refugee who had come to the United States years before and had formed a friendship with Nick, to search for a motorhome for the astronauts.

  While Jerry and his team were driving to the gulf, Tia and her team were fighting zombies and recovering the new motorhomes at a place south of Anniston they’d found.

  Mrs. deJesus waved at the driver of the first motorhome towing the damaged Escalade on the back. She ran to the door and opened in, climbing the two steps.

  “Cheryl escaped and shot Kellie and Danny. Randy’s hurt bad. Drive out back and park right in front of the shelter,” she said rushing up to the driver’s seat. Tia didn’t stop to ask questions. She maneuvered the big motorhome up the overgrown path. Mrs. deJesus filled her in on everything as she drove. The other motorhomes followed.

  Tia parked right in front of the parapet that Jerry had built when he was first building the shelter. Tara had parked the quad as close as she could to the door of the shelter and was just shutting it off.

  Both women rushed out of the motorhome. The drivers of the other motorhomes must have seen the makeshift stretcher and came running too.

  Tia, Nick, Josh and Sade carefully lifted the ladder off the quad and took it inside the shelter.

  Everyone else followed.

  * * *

  It took a lot of talking and holding of his hand before Amanda could convince the young private she was real and alive. He was 18 years old and had just arrived on post three days before people started dying. He was fresh out of AIT (advanced individual training) at Ft. McClellan. He’d started in-processing and was assigned a billet, but that was all. He had no idea what had happened or would happen. When he couldn’t find anyone else alive, he thought he was one of the living dead from the stories his grandma used to tell.

  Amanda assured him he wasn’t and told him of her plan to fly to Anchorage. Sheppard, looking young and scared said he’d do whatever it took to get away from here. The dead bodies frightened him while he was awake and tortured his dreams.

  They found some gear for Sheppard and loaded it into the truck.

  Sheppard, who said everyone called him Shep, slowly began showing more life as he realized he was not inside some living-dead nightmare from the tales of his grandmother’s voodoo.

  Amanda drove them back to the maintenance buildings where she usually worked. She knew of a helicopter, a Blackhawk, that had just finished its flight check after an overhaul, which was fueled and ready.

  They were driving down Neely Road on the base when Amanda saw another soldier, her second that day. He was running out of a building off to her right. He was waving a white table cloth. Amanda brought the truck to quick stop. Shep looked at her, fear as real as the shaking in his hands.

  “Stay here,” she told him before climbing out of the truck. She knew right then she was going to get a weapon. With no one else alive, she hadn’t even thought about it, but if this soldier was crazy, she had nothing with which to defend herself.

  The soldier turned out to be Capt. Poitra. He was an accountant with finance and, like Amanda and Shep was working on leaving the post. The captain had been gathering food to take with him. Amanda, who had planned on flying the 370 miles hadn’t thought about food. She didn’t think she’d need to eat if she was going to be flying for just a couple of hours.

  Poitra didn’t pull rank, but did get her to reconsider flying to Anchorage. If she failed, she’d probably die and kill Shep as well. If they took trucks, if something mechanical broke, chances were they wouldn’t end up dead in fiery wreckage on the side of a mountain.

  Also, with two trucks, if one broke down, the other would be there as a back up.

  The captain was a short, husky man, with close-cropped dark hair. He looked like a man familiar with the north and the cold.

  As they talked about plans, she learned this was his second tour of Wainwright and was headed the same direction as she was. She found out his wife had not survived the plague. She had been pregnant with their first child and a lot of who Capt. Poitra was died when his wife did. He thought about taking his own life, but chose instead to drive to Anchorage, then on to Sterling Alaska where he’d grown up.

  “Safety in numbers, Saunders,” he’d said to her and she was forced to agree. It’d take them a full day to drive to Anchorage, but it was probably safer than flying and saving a few hours.

  They spent the rest of the day preparing for the trip. They decided on Army trucks because they could mount machine guns on them. They didn’t expect trouble, but Alaska had wild animals that were already encroaching onto the base. Mounting an M60 machine gun on top of the HUMVEE might mean the difference if they needed food or were attacked by a wild bear or moose.

  After an hour of hearing her say “Yes, sir,” to him, the captain said the world had ended and so had the United States Army and she should call him Jim. The captain had already left the Army. Amanda saw no reason to think she was still in the Army, but part of her couldn’t stop believing it.

  They slept in the Post Exchange that night, snacking on the food and looking for anything they might need for survival. The HUMVEEs had radios, but they went ahead and got walkie-talkies with extra batteries as well. Jim said it wouldn’t hurt to be too prepared
. They slept on inflatable mattresses in the sports department with extra blankets from linens. The heat and lights were still working here, unlike many of the other buildings on post, but the thermostat must have been on a timer because it cooled off after 9 p.m.

  It was a brisk 15 degrees above zero when they began their drive the next morning. They had their headlights on because of the short days. They’d only see the sun, if it wasn’t obscured by clouds, for about five hours this early in the year. They’d jump on the George Parks Highway which would take them all the way into Anchorage. They had already seen a number of vehicles on the road, wrecked after the driver had died.

  Their HUMVEEs were fueled and each truck had four five-gallon fuel cans strapped to the rear deck. The trucks had a range of about 300 miles on a tank of fuel and they were going at least 370 miles. Amanda had packed the same manual pump they used to fill the fuel cans in case they had to forage for fuel along the way.

  Jim drove by himself, leading the two-truck convoy. Amanda took the wheel first and followed the captain at a respectable distance so her headlights didn’t bother him. He’d told her already they would stop every two hours for a 15-minute break and every six hours for a rest break. He said there was no reason to hurry. The trucks were winterized, but Alaskan roads could be tricky, more so now that there were no road crews.

  * * *

  The injured were treated and fussed over at the farm in Alabama. Beds were moved from the upstairs rooms and furniture from the living room moved temporarily outside.

  All three patients were resting comfortably. Randy hadn’t come to yet, but Kellie was lucid, although a little drunk. She cried a lot and everyone re-assured her that everyone was going to be okay, even though no one knew if it were true.